I’m getting sick and tired lately of these nasty Tory bigots. Why is it so many of them are coming out in droves to vote no? Where are the supporters? Why aren’t they countering these tossers? The more I hear this negative stuff, the more unsettled I become that equal marriage is going to fail.

So he had a meeting with religious people in his constituency? What about those who support equal marriage? Does he dismiss them? Another bloody religious Tory homophobic bigot.

That’s why I was against CPs. I knew this would be the weapon the opposition would use to justify a ban on equal marriage and now it looks as if they’re succeeding. There hasn’t been one Tory MP defending equal marriage lately. All we get is the hateful rhetoric from their allies in the equally hateful religious cults. The media are inundated with it and hardly anything positive to say about equal marriage

Why do you need gay “marriage” when civil partnerships are perfectly adequate for your needs? Gay marriage isn’t going to make your life any better, and you’ll still be as unhappy as before because it’s not a homophobic society that causes homosexuals to be miserable, it’s their own shame, self-hatred, and envy of normal couples and families..

I wouldn’t be “trolling” gay websites if the homosexuals weren’t up in our faces all the time, trying to force their lifestyle down our throats. If they just kept quiet about it and got on with their lives like everyone else, it wouldn’t be worth me wasting any energy over.

Gay people are all around you, Caligula – in hospitals, schools, rail stations, supermarkets. You’ve probably interacted with numerous gay people in the real world this year and don’t even realise it. Why don’t you realise? Because we don’t ‘force our lifestyles’ on you or anyone. It’s people like YOU who are creating conflict and noise where there needn’t be any. Stop obsessing about LGBT people. It’s worrying.

So apparently you would be more than happy to embrace a civil partnership if the government were to abolish marriage entirely? Since when do you speak for me or any other gay person. I’m perfectly happy and well adjusted and secure in my sexuality. It seems you aren’t otherwise you wouldn’t keep coming here to agitate if you think that’s what you’re doing. Come out of that dark, lonely closet you’ve been living in. If anyone is full of self-hatred, clearly it is you.

No, marriage is for heterosexuals and to abolish that would be wrong. Civil partnerships for homosexuals are a reasonable compromise, and I can’t understand why some people don’t feel that this is adequate enough for their needs.

No-one’s abolishing marriage for heterosexuals. Just like permitting interracial marriage didn’t abolish marriage for people of the same race, and giving votes to women didn’t abolish suffrage for men.

You are correct. All the reasonable things that should NOT be denied because of sexuality i.e. next-of-kin rights, the right to be at bedside of a partner etc are all present with civil partnerships.

The things that are absent from civil partnerships are things like a specific definition of adultery and consummation which only really make sense in terms of heterosexuality and their ability to reproduce babies. Also, it would be impossible to apply the current rule that husband is default father of his wife’s child to gay people.

The truth is that everything that a gay person could need is in a civil partnership. Gay marriage is not about equality or fairness, it is about a few (by no means the majority) of gay people forcing the rest of society to accept that their relationships are the same as heterosexual people’s, when plainly, it is different in the sense that the consequences that flow from it i.e. procreation are different.

Equal doesn’t have to mean the same. Same sex relationships can be different to opposite sex ones yet still be equal. You could just as easily use your argument to deny equality to women, for example, as clearly we’re different from men.

Some (straight) people feel very strongly that they don’t wish to get married. Yet they don’t feel the need to go round insisting that no-one else should be able to get married. If you don’t want to get married, that’s great. But how insecure do you feel to want to deny others that choice?

No, most people (the quiet majority) are NOT ‘fed up’ with it. You remind me of a cafe I went to once with a vegetarian friend. She asked the owner if the pie was vegetarian and he said “Not completely”!!

You can’t have half-equality. There’s no reason why we shouldn’t have equal marriage, and the noisy fuss against it in the media and on the internet isn’t at all representative of tghe majority of people who are in favour of it or are smart enough to realise that it won’t affect them at all so simply don’t care.

Maybe the people of carlisle should have marriage equality taken away from them so they know what inequality feels like. Let them just have civil partnerships, whilst the rest of the country can get married, and see if they think they’re equal then.

Also, in a survey carried out by my office, 100% percent of those who responded agreed with marriage equality.

I agree, Mark. It’s odd that nobody in government in support of equal marriage would ever put that to the opposition? CPs have become an extremely useful weapon the opposition can use to justify no equal marriage even though the majority of them who claim they support them really don’t. They’d strongly oppose allowing heterosexuals access to CPs and I believe if that were part of the equal marriage legislation, it would really expose the lies and dishonesty of the opposition when they claim CPs are equal. I remember many of them saying that introducing CPs would diminish the importance of marriage, so here we have yet another liar saying he supports them.

“And if you are NOT WHITE its called civil partnership; if you are WHITE it’s called marriage.So I actually think they are being treated equally.”

Now can you see how offensive what you said is? You don’t have separate institutions for people just because of their race or sexuality – and if you do it’s prejudiced.

The only reason you don’t want LGBT people to get married is because you’re prejudiced. There can be no other reason. Separate isn’t equal. Go on – explain why you think WE should be happy with a CP while YOU are entitled to a marriage.

Indeed, but logically he should be, shouldn’t he, as they’re both “equal”? Yet he’s too stupid to realise that that’s the logical deduction from what he’s said. What he really means, of course, is that straight people are special and only they deserve the privilege of marriage.

They just don’t see us as we see ourselves, and as we know ourselves to be, do they.

These heterosexual Conservative “authorities” are definitely of the view that life is a competition: the ones who can pull off a relationship with the opposite sex can make it to the altar and be awarded with a marriage certificate. And anyone who can’t “make it” with a member of the opposite sex, or who doesn’t want to, is a deviant, a sub-standard, and therefore is a loser . . . who must not be awarded a marriage certificate.

Some of these married people have fought hard to get hold of that marriage certificate, it was “touch and go” whether or not they could actually convinced a member of the opposite sex to do the deed with them, and so they don’t want that marriage certificate “devalued”.

Absolutely as well as the privilege to commit adultery over and over and remarry as well as divorce as many times as they wish. So much for their sanctity of marriage and the one man one woman nonsense. In their case a marriage is between one man and more than one woman and vice versa. Bigotry is such a nice privilege when one is straight. Now who was it who said that allowing equal marriage could herald a demand for polygamous relationships, among others? It was definitely a straight religious Tory, in fact many of them.

There are quite a few pro-equal marriage opinion pieces, letters, articles, etc., but they tend not to hit the headlines. “TORY ADULTERER IS AGAINST GAY MARRIAGE” sell copy. And revenues from advertising are how papers make money. Draw people in, circulation up, more advertisers. Have you counted how many pages in various papers there are.

There is a lack of balance in individual articles sometimes, and facts are missing. When you read “Muslims demand gay marriage exemption” you should be thinking …. what, all Muslims !?? Clearly not, and often that isn’t made clear, with a balancing view (difficult to find sometimes). The Muslim Council of Britain are a right-wing bunch of religious clerics who’d never heard the term equality before, and they only represent about 1/3 of Mosques by affiliation, and affiliation does not mean those Mosques even believe the rantings of the MCB. Over 50% of Muslims (Pinknews article) said they were proud of the Britain’s record on gay rights.

Some people may find themselves in a state of hypervigilance and it’s even more important to think rationally and logically through what is being said, and what has been left out, through ignorance, or for a reason. Remember that being bullied by someone is an awful experience, but being “mobbed” (look it up) is devastating. Remain strong.

So he’s just told us he’s a total moron, admitting to meeting to religious groups, but clearly not bothering to hear from groups in favour of this, including religious groups like the Quakers, Unitarians, Stonewall, pro-equality groups, etc.

I’d say that he’s just disqualified himself from being taken seriously.

Clearly this issue is all in our heads. We are all wrong and this one man knows better and has been gracious enough to tell us all. We should all thank this man for being so brave to tell us that how we feel is wrong and that he in fact is right

At the end of the day, only white heterosexual men have the power to enforce or protect anything. If we didn’t exist, Europe would be Islamic and gays would be hanged. The only reason gays have any rights at all is because white heterosexual men granted them, and we can just as easily take them back when we’ve had enough.

Gays and lesbians can campaign and fight all they want, but it wouldn’t have achieved anything unless the normal majority were willing to indulge it. As it turns out however, you give these people an inch and they try to take a mile, so the normal majority are starting to lose patience.

What do you think would have happened if you were fighting and campaigning in some theocratic Islamic regime? They’d have crushed you and you know it. You’d have no rights at all.

I am a working class white hetero male, but I don’t see how the situations are comparable. For a start, homosexuals have never had the numbers or the physical capability to confront the aristocracy.

And if you think the fact that my working class ancestors didn’t have the vote somehow means “we’re all in this together”, you’re wrong. I don’t do the whole class warfare thing. Straight white males are rightfully entitled to what we have, minorities are not.

In other words, while working class straight white men might not have had the vote, they provided the muscle. The aristocracy wouldn’t have been able to enforce any laws or rights without working class, straight white men to do it for them. So actually, it was us who ultimately had the power.

I gather Ben Summerskill is out of the country at the present time. But it looks like he’ll have his work cut out when he gets back. Stonewall will have a momentous task on its hands to lobby politicians and reverse the drift of to the other side. And, of course, there is still the House of Lords to consider.

It’s going to be a close call if it passes in the Commons. I think the Lords will scuttle it I hate saying it but I think that’s a real possibility. There are many of them who think the way of this moron. You can bet on it that the opposition is already mounting a writing campaign to the Lords while our side sit back and do nothing, then whine about it after the fact why it failed.

Community religious leaders -Who? the rabid homophobic god botherers come to mind.
Numbers Mr Stevenson, Numbers :- 80% of what ? ; the like- minded people you drink with on a saturday ?, the people present at the time in your office , ? the one man and his dog you met on the way to the bottle bank? . As for the rest of his trite moronic bilge this is CIVIL Marriage you little tit and F8ck all to do with the religiously infected.
If this is the standard of thought the Conservative MP for Carlisle has, then I despair for Carlisle. The best thing would do is to take away the power of churches to hold weddings and have only on Civil Weddings as in France

“And if you are of the same sex its called civil partnership; if you are a man and woman it’s called marriage.
So in fact they are two different things.
I don’t like calling people names but i like morons paid withmy tax money even less.

The very fact that these people want to ban us from marriage suggests that, in their minds at least, there is something “special” about marriage that we should be denied. That’s not equality, that’s bigotry. It doesn’t matter if white people are allowed only to drink from white water fountains and black people from black water fountains and all come from the same water main. There is a principle of equality here – might be the same water, but it isn’t equality.

A lot of people would be happy to ban gays from marriage just to spite them, and I can sympathise with that. After all, homosexuals are abusing the rights we’ve already given them and have never shown any appreciation for it, so why would we consider letting gays have any more?

The fact is, homosexuals have lied to us time after time. They first said all they wanted is for homosexuality to be legalised, and they’d be content and keep to themselves. But that wasn’t enough. Turns out the “bigots” were actually right all along. Now they want gay marriage, gay adoption, and all sorts of other nonsense. If we allow them that, then what’s next?

“A lot of people would be happy to ban gays from marriage just to spite them, and I can sympathise with that”

I’m sure you can, love. You positively exude spite and bitterness. I feel sorry for you – although I doubt you’ll believe that – because you’re obviously far from happy if you feel the need to bully and denigrate others to try to make yourself feel better about your own failings.

I’m not happy. The influence of gay rights, feminism, etc on this country has been absolutely toxic, so of course I’m going to be bitter about it. A stable, functioning, prosperous society is more important than political correctness and the feelings of a few minorities.

Feminists =/= Women. Feminists ARE a minority and do not speak for women in general.

But, anyway, let’s consider the facts.

Homosexuals and feminists have compromised our national security and economic stability by voting for their own selfish and narrow agenda, rather than the wellbeing of the country as a whole. Of course it doesn’t matter if the country is heading for disaster, the most important thing is that gays can get married, right?

It’s about more than just the rights women have gained, it’s also the culture and attitude that feminists have cultivated that has been toxic for the physical and spiritual health of women, the family, and society as a whole. The more rights and responsibilities women gain, the more insecure, unfulfilled and unhappy they become.

Many women on some level know that the root of their unhappiness is feminism and long for the way things used to be, except the feminists try to bully and brainwash any woman who chooses to embrace her femininity. Feminism claims to be about giving women the choice, but the way feminists treat these “traitor” women who choose to be good wives and mothers shows that this is a lie.

“the way feminists treat these “traitor” women who choose to be good wives and mothers shows that this is a lie.”

I actually agree with you about that. Women’s rights should be about choice with each choice being equally valid. I too have noticed disparaging comments from career women about stay-at-home mothers and it’s utterly wrong.

However, many women feel compelled to work, not because of ‘toxic’ feminists, but because of things like the increase in house prices. So the problem isn’t just aggressive feminists.

But women deserve equality and we still don’t have it eg women only earn on average 2/3 of the salary of a man doing the same job. That’s not to mention the patronising misogyny I still encounter far more often than I should in everyday life.

Do you believe in equality (equal worth, equal rights not ‘being the same’) between the sexes? You said that straight, white men should rule…

No, you’re not. Even if we take “the normal majority” to mean straight, white males as you seem to think it does, most of those people are in favour of equality. Rights aren’t finite, you know. There are enough to go around. Only the insecure baulk at other people being given something they themselves already have.

How DO you manage to live your life while you’re busy fuming about the ‘outrage’ of people who are no better or no worse than you getting on with their own lives??

There’s no such thing as “equal rights for everybody”. In any society, there always has to be a dominant group with more rights and privileges. There’s no way around that, so while we’re still supposedly in a democracy, the dominant group should be the majority, or white heterosexual men and women.

If you’re talking about gay marriage specifically (marriage equality already exists, a gay man has the same right to marry a woman that I do), then I’d be happy to put that to a referendum because I know most people oppose it, despite what some of the rigged polls in the Guardian say.

“In any society, there always has to be a dominant group with more rights and privileges”

Why?

And why do you delight in splitting human beings into little exclusive groups? People aren’t that easily categorised and they don’t all think the same. Most of my friends are white and straight yet they all believe in equal marriage. Why? Because it won’t hurt them one jot, and they can see that it’s caused no problems ion countries like Sweden (where most people are straight and white too).

Human rights legislation supposedly protects the right to freedom of religion, and the right for ethnic minorities, women, homosexuals, and other groups with Protected Status to not be discriminated against. Sounds good in theory, except they contradict each other. You can’t have freedom of religion without being able to discriminate against certain groups, and you can’t have the right for these groups not be discriminated against without infringing on people’s religious freedom.

So where do you draw the line in order to make everyone happy? You can’t, therefore there’s no such thing as equality, and in fact the rights of homosexuals takes precedence over the rights of the majority at the moment.

As an example, consider the Christian B&B couple who refused a shared room to the homosexual couple.

The courts decided that the rights for homosexuals not to suffer discrimination takes precedence over religious freedom for Christians. This is wrong, and it gives homosexuals and other Protected Groups power over the normal majority. When minority groups are dictating to the majority and using the law to bully them, that is not equality.

I’m not actually a BNP member by the way, although I agree with a lot of what they stand for. I’d consider if it they got a new leader and cleaned themselves up a bit. Every other party has sold out and panders to the minority vote.

“and in fact the rights of homosexuals takes precedence over the rights of the majority at the moment.”

I disagree. LGBT people aren’t getting rights at the disadvantage of others any more than women got suffrage at the disadvantage of men.

There is no right in law to discriminate, but there IS one not to be discriminated against. Therefore, rulings like the Christian B and B one merely protect the right not to be discriminated against according to the Goods and Services Act. Such a ruling would apply equally to a Christian couple if they were turned away from a B and B for being Christian, and that’s quite right and fair.

“This is wrong, and it gives homosexuals and other Protected Groups power over the normal majority.”

But you can only think that if you despise a particular minority, can’t you? Annoyed at that big ramp they built outside those offices so that people in wheelchairs can access them? No, I bet you’re not because disabled people are ‘ok’ in your opinion, even though they’re a minority. It seems that you just have an issue with LGBT people yet I still don’t understand why.

Do you want the right to discriminate against us? What are your feelings? I still can’t understand what your ‘problem’ is. LGBT people are all around you and we just want the same right as you to get on with our lives quietly. Why is that a problem for you?

I honestly can’t understand you. If we had equal marriage it wouldn’t impinge on your life at all, would it? Or are you just irked at the idea that we would be equal to you? (not being rude – those are genuine questions).

Stevenson would be the first to oppose that and we all know why don’t we? The majority of the Tory party would reject it too for fear of upsetting the religious nutters. Another reason why state religion is a very bad thing. The French figured that one out more than two centuries ago, civil marriage only, that’s why they’re having an easier time introducing it for gay couples, in spite of the catholic cult’s interference. Now wait until it’s legal there as of January 27 when the vote takes place. Stevenson et al will be squirming, so close to home too and expect more hateful rhetoric ensuing.

So, this man thinks that Civil Partnership is equal to a Marriage, let him step out of the UK and he will find that this is not so, he is so far behind the times now that Same Sex Marriage is being introduced in the USA and several other westernised countries, he is certainly part of the nasty contingent of the Conservative Party whom is ruining David Cameron’s vision of the future, he should be reprimanded !

Agreed, but Cameron isn’t going to ditch equal marriage. Doing so will further guarantee an utter defeat 2015 and send the party back into isolation for another decade or more. They’ve learned nothing from the last election, not even a mandate to govern on their own even before equal marriage was part of the Contract for Equalities.

When you have the Daily Mail conceding that the majority of Tories support equal marriage in various polls and the country as a whole, then you know it’s not going to be ditched. If everyone in the Tory party said they would vote no, then I would expect it to be dropped. Not going to happen. There are probably enough votes to see it through. Even the Daily Mail revealed that the current count was 293 not including Tory votes. I think a passing number would be 326 and I know there are currently between 40-50 guaranteed Tory votes. That’s why we’re hearing so much of the desperate rants from some of them. They know it’s going to happen without them.

Are you serious about point 2? You’re joking right? I’m fine with gay people adopting (not IVF but then I’m not happy with IVF for straight people, either) but you cannot just accept that the other marriage partner of a child a gay woman gives birth to is the biological parent no questions asked!! Further proof is required, for the sake of the child. No offence but point 2 is bonkers. You can assume it with straights as they CAN produce naturally.

And you’d be wrong to assume that. What was that percentage about the number of children of married couples in the UK who are NOT the child of their supposed father (ie the husband of the woman who gave birth to them)? I’ve read as high as 20%.

Also, the child of a married woman who conceives through sperm donation has its father listed as the woman’s husband even though he’s clearly not and even if he’s completely infertile.

You seem to be scraping the barrel to find arguments against equal marriage. I quite understand that you personally don’t want to get married, but why do you care so much if other gay people do? It won’t affect you one jot.

I had the misfortune of having this idiot as my local MP before moving overseas. He’s a not a particularly nice man and is probably appealing to the lowest common denominator in the local community for votes to keep him in his seat at the next election. The religious leaders he speaks of include another right wing homophobe in the shape of the Bishop of Carlisle, so there is no surprise about the outcome of his meetings. I agree with other posters that he should quantify his opinion poll to really see if he has ‘caught the mood’ of the local population. Of course, he won’t because he will be left looking like the bigot he really is. Sad, sad little man!

“Mr Stevenson told ITV News that gay couples already have all of the same legal rights as heterosexuals through civil partnerships.”
““I do actually think they have got the same rights in terms of the legal position for instance on tax and inheritance and other matters….”

Due to a loophole, pension contributions made before the introduction of civil partnerships in 2005 do not need to be counted towards the payout of widow pensions.
It has led to one case in which a person received a pension of £500 a year, compared to the £40000 annual payout he would have received had his partner had their reproductive organs on the inside.
That is 1/80th the size.

Either Mr Stevenson thinks they are already the same, in which case he can have no objection to allowing same-sex couples to have marriages; or he knows that they are different, in which case he supports inequality.

Why doesn’t he have the courage of his convictions?

It’s one thing being told to stand at the back of the bus, but I can only feel contempt for someone herding me to the back of the bus while saying “It’s exactly the same as the front.” Really? Then why am I standing there and not you?

I wonder how he’d feel if idiotic, chinless-wonders were barred from becoming MPs? Treated unfairly? Of course, he’d still have full equality with other Tories because he’d remain an upper-class tosser.